Help

I hope someone can help me! I have recently split from my partner - he left on Christmas Eve whilst I was at work! He took all is belongings with him and each time I have tried to talk to him he refuses, and tells me I am crazy...I'm starting to think I am. We met 5 years ago and had an intense relationship from the beginning. We were together everyday and quickly moved in together and spent most of our free time together. We both had difficult childhoods. My parents essentially split up when I was 10 and I saw them only sporadically and was brought up by my grandparents. They are sadly now deceased as is my father and my relationship with my mum is difficult. I am 37. My parent came from a broken home too but his step father was an abuse drunk and he had a very difficult childhood. Around a year ago my partner started a new job ( we are both nurses) at a hospital, in the same dept I used to work in, so I knew a lot of the staff there. We decided to keep our relationship private from them as nurses have a reputation for tittle tattle. However it back fired for me. He went to a party with the staff for a leaving do and kissed one of his colleagues...perhaps more happened I don't know. He didn't come home that night and I suspect something more happened. He denied the kiss even and when I confronted hi. And used he finally admitted it and said he had been flattered and she was young and he was surprised she had been interested in him. He said he felt awful about it and assured me it would never happen again. I forgave him but then that girl came to work at my hospital I was plagued by it every day but didn't mention it to her or to my friends as I felt so humiliated but inside I was so angry. I then found emails on our computer at home - he had to logged out. They were emails where he had solicited himself on line - with people I knew, people he trained with, people he knew from back home, strangers he had met on Facebook and were pictures of his penis and the girls vaginas/underwear shots all with revolting messages attached. I confronted him with this and he said he was sorry, that it was an afflictin from his past, that it meant nothing, that it was a way of getting some control. He promised to get help but he never did. Instead he became secretive, taking his phone in the shower with him, keeping it in his pocket, only getting it out when I was out of the room...on occasion I would see him putting it away as I walked back in. I tormented myself with what he was doing, was too embarrassed to tell my friend and instead shut myself away and worried about it constantly. I lost my self esteem and my self respect. I felt unhappy and unloved. But still I stayed. We had sex once in the last 12 months of our relationship and I got pregnant. The rest of the time I sought his approval, scared that he would leave me, I tried harder and harder to be perfect. When he was working I would often drive him to work if I was off and the tube wasn't running, essentially did his coursework for a uni module essential for any possible promotion. He repaid me by staying out all night and when I rang hi. Would ignore the phone and text me the next day to say he had stayed with friends and that I ought to have trusted him more. That I was being unreasonable and stopping him from having a life and that he was unhappy and that I needed to change. He then left me without explanation and left me devastated. I can't talk to my friend because they know I am a strong person - but I couldn't leave him as he became my family. I have read 10s of self help books, am learning a new language, have thrown yield back into work and even after all this I still feel so upset and desperately want him to come home. I am aware how pathetic this sounds, I am not a stupid woman, I have a good job, a PhD, but I just feel that if he got help we would be able to be so very happy. Please help me, I am really struggling to cope.

My baby is 10 months old. My midwife was someone I did my nurse training with. So no I couldn't. I have friends but I am just too embarrassed to tell them the whole story. I just feel so sad, so hurt. I just wanted him to stop the messages I thought and still think we could have been so happy without them

I just put one foot in front of the other at the moment and hope this will pass or that he will comeback and apologise and change. I have told a few close friends a bit but they say they are amazed I put up with that and that I am so mucho better with out him in my life and that if I take him back they will disown me. I just can't seem to deal with this at all.

Look, this man has made it clear that he does not want to be in a relationship with you. You are well rid of him, but if your child is his you need to make sure that he pays maintenance. But don't waste time trying to think of ways to make him come back. ALl this does is make you miserable, and why on earth would you want this tosser back in the first place?

I am not interested in his money, I can provide for my our baby myself. I have a good job. I just don't understand why he treated me that way, why I made excuses for him. I guess I understood his past and wanted to help him

I just hung in there, hoping he would stop, hoping he would realise that I am worth more than that. But he didn't. I tried to contact him on Christmas Day and he sent me a text telling me to leave him alone and that I was spoiling his Christmas it drove me crazy but I couldn't leave him. I love him still and feel this enormous void. In every other respect we got on so well. I can't help but blame his past for his behaviour and make excuses for him

OP, one of the big things we are all guilty of is saying is, if only, he did this, i did that etc. Im recently out of a long term relationship so I know what you are going through whatever the circumstances. You will feel sad and hurt for however long it takes but you will feel better again, it just takes time. Be kind to yourself, do stuff you could never do when you were in the relationship and eventually a bit of "re-wiring" will occur.

I can't tell people the truth about what happened as I am just so embarrassed. I begged him time and again to stop he always apologised and promised to get help. Told me he was scared. I loved him too much to walk away. He made it all seem as though it was my fault and would punish me by going out with people from work and staying out all night without telling me and I was just so relieved when he came home that I let it go. He would say that if he was happy at home then he wouldn't stay out all night. But how could we be happy when I saw more women's vaginas in his emails repeatedly than I have in my nursing career? Am I going mad or is there something I could have done differently to make him stop?

It's all well and good saying do things you couldn't do in the relationship but I have a small child at home, dependent on me, a full time job and no family support. I have little time to do anything. It takes me all my effort to get up in the morning, put on a brave face and care for my patients, staff and my child

It's not that surprising he's in a caring profession. While many people in similar jobs are lovely and well-intentioned, these professions also attract fuckups and abusers; people who want admiration and attention and people who get off on hurting the vulnerable.

There is nothing you could have done to change this man's behaviour. He's an arsehole. Devote your energy to yourself and your child. It might help to get some counselling if you are feeling this bad - you do not need a romantic relationship with a man to be happy. It's much better to be single than with an arsehole.

I have been seeing a counsellor when it first happened because I just couldn't do anything but cry. In my job I have to be focused so that does help too. I am trying. Recently he has been sending me emails. Not to ask how I am or for that matter our child. His most recent one stated that he wanted to have a frank discussion about what went wrong and that it was likely academic now. But we should be aware of it anyway so we can prevent making the same mistakes in the future. I haven't replied yet as it just upset me....like he was blaming me for his messaging